Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Economic Update is a weekly nationally syndicated radio program produced by Democracy at Work and hosted by Richard D. Wolff. The program explores complex economic issues and empowers listeners with information to analyze their own financial situation as well as the economy at large. By focusing on the economic dimensions of everyday life - wages, jobs, taxes, debts, and profits - the program explores alternative ways to organize markets and government policies.

Updates on Maine's progressive economic changes, US Senate documents how the very rich abuse the estate tax, Nestle profits as nearby Flint's water still polluted, poverty and 'social exclusion' in Greece and Europe, Trump/GOP cuts health programs, US profits rise as wage share falls. Major discussions: (1) economics of migration and (2) economics of coalitions between labor unions and worker coops.

Updates on critique of Uber and gig economy; WI Sen Johnson endorses inequality; Norway to pay male and female athletes same; corporations buy back their own shares; deaths of overworked Japanese; 10% NY school kids homeless; and majority of major US corporations already pay much below official 35% tax rate. Major discussion of changing economics of socialism.

Updates on mostly low-paid service jobs in US future, Senate deregulates banks, college spending per student reinforces income inequality, US loneliness a factor in illnesses and premature death, Univ of Chicago grad students unionize, Brazilian civil and religious authorities push almost-rotten food for the poor, and costs of pollution. Interview Dr. Harriet Fraad on psychology and economics of sex work industry.

Updates on economic costs/benefits of refugees, rise of BRICS nations in world economy (vs US decline), closing and privatization of US public libraries, size of slavery and forced child labor in world economy now, and how the "gig" economy is just another effort to profit by lengthening the working day. Major discussion: what the historical transition to capitalism suggests about transition from capitalism to a worker-coop-based economic system.

Updates on closing 6,400 retail stores in 2017, decline in US housing starts, 800 major corporations oppose Trump on DACA, US child poverty rates, US to rely on banks' "self-reporting" of their misdeeds, and significance of California Disclose Act. Interview investigative journalist Bob Hennelly on Local 3 strike in New York and its importance to the US labor movement today.

Updates on major capitalist failures, buying senators on health care, opioid addiction's effects on insurance and on labor force participation, price gouging in emergencies, and US income inequality. Major discussion on 100th anniversary of Russian Revolution in 1917: lessons of USSR economic history for 21st century socialism.

Updates on Wonderwoman, Archbishop's critique of UK economic system, a US Labor Day comment, McDonald's workers strike in UK, economics of hurricanes, and economics of the Trump/GOP tax cut "reform." Interview Dr. Harriet Fraad: the capitalist system's impacts on health - from stress to death - are mostly unacknowledged or taken account of in its key decisions.

Updates on US working conditions 2017, looming US recession and plans for negative interest rates, schools raise funds by shaming poor school children, and the economics of fascism. Major discussion: why FDR's New Deal (successful trickle up economics) was not repeated after 2008 (unsuccessful trickle down economics). Consequences of post-1945 destruction of coalition that produced New Deal.

Updates on Trump vs Amazon over taxes, Americans dying younger, Monsanto profits at farmers' expense, and economics of homeless school children. SPECIAL GUEST: Activist Ron Robinson on US water crisis.

Updates on how millennials have fallen behind their parents in income wealth, etc., on poor medical outcomes in US despite paying most for health (especially drugs), deepening scandals of German car corps, and why a Chinese t-shirt-maker investment in Arkansas teaches frightening economic lessons. Interview with Prof Michael Hudson on "Junk Economics."

Updates on how golf courses are economically undemocratic, how US drug corps block much cheaper medicine imports, why US corps neither need nor deserve tax cuts, how Monsanto bought academic research to keep dangerous "Roundup" on the market, and the economics and politics of scapegoating immigrants in the US and Germany. Interview with Joerg Rieger and Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger on their combination of faith and advocating for labor to undo inequality in the US.